The present invention relates to a viewing device which enables to view digital images in wide angles of view. In its 2D version, the viewing device could be used to view small light emitting screens from very short distances without the need for optical lenses. Viewing screens from very short distances enables wide angles of view without requirement for large screens. The principal innovation of this invention is the proposed conversion of each light emitting picture element (pixel) into a Vector Light Source (VLS). VLSs are light sources that emit a narrow beam of light only in one direction which corresponds to the vector's pointing direction. In our invention, all the pixels of an image are converted into VLSs which are pointed at a central point. Each VLS viewed from that central point appears in the visual field of view as a sharp point of light located at the opposite direction of the original VLS pointing direction. Hence, a large set of such VLSs could generate a wide angle spherical image, which could tessellate large parts of a sphere.
The technique of converting a light emitting source (pixel) into a VLS is quite simple. It entails placing each light source at the end of a narrow tunnel drilled in an opaque material. The light emitted at the other end of the tunnel forms a very narrowly pointed beam of light which has pointing direction as the direction of the tunnel. Another method to generate narrow beams of light is to place each light source behind a tiny lens which concentrates its light into a narrow beam.
In this invention we also propose to combine two of the 2D wide viewing angle devices described above into a stereoscopic 3D (Three-Dimensional) display device and, more particularly, to a stereoscopic 3D display device allowing humans to view 3D images and 3D video in wide angles of view, which could exceed 180 degrees both horizontally and vertically. For this purpose, this device could simultaneously display 2 or more, different, wide angle, high resolution color images at full frame rates. Such images could simulate the complete views naturally perceived by the left and the right eyes, thus creating a 3D display which emulates the complete natural views perceived by humans. The viewing angles enabled by this device could be much larger than the viewing angles provided by other 3D display devices such as 3D TVs, which are not capable of giving the viewer a full 3D sensation because their viewing angles are much narrower than natural human vision and does not provide views usually perceived by the peripheral human vision.
In order to provide sharp wide angle views with a device with small size, one has to project each pixel (picture element) of the image only in one concentric direction which matches the direction of a light ray emitted from that pixel in a 3D scene. The light beam emitted from that pixel must be very narrow and projected towards the center of the eye's pupil. If the light beams emitted from each pixel are not narrow enough, the view perceived by the viewer will be blurred. We name these one directional narrow light beams as Vector Light Sources (VLSs). Such VLSs could be constructed by a small light source such as a Light Emitting Diode (LED) which emits its light only in one directional narrow light beam. This could be achieved by placing the light source at the end of a very narrow tunnel like opening drilled in an opaque material wall. Another option is to create narrow, one directional vector light sources, is to place each one of the LEDs behind a small lens focused on the desired VLS direction.
The pointing directions of all these VLSs are arranged in a spherical dual-centric configuration. It means that the VLSs are divided into two equal sized sets. One VLS set, which includes approximately half of the VLSs are directed at one center, which corresponds to the location of one eye pupil and the second set of VLSs are directed at a second center which corresponds to the location of the second eye pupil.
The requirement for a spherical concentric or dual-centric set of directions does not mean that the VLSs must be installed on a spherical surface. In one embodiment of the invention, the VLSs could be installed on a non-spherical convex surface which could be used as a visor attached to a helmet or as goggles to be worn on the face. Even though the surface is non-spherical, the directions of the VLSs installed on the device must be dual-concentric i.e. half of the VLSs are directed at the center of one eye's pupil and the other half directed at the center of the second eye's pupil.
Half of the VLSs could be regarded as if each VLS is on a surface of a sphere in which each of the VLSs has a viewing direction that corresponds to the direction of a radial line that extends from the sphere's center to the location of the VLS. The actual viewing angles of the human eye cover a bit more than 180 degrees in the horizontal direction and a bit less than 180 degrees in the vertical direction. Therefore, in the actual embodiment, one could construct our 3D viewing device on a surface which extends a bit more than 180 degrees of accumulation of viewing directions in the horizontal plane of the left and the right eyes and a bit less in the vertical directions of both eyes. Since the surface could be non-spherical, the viewing directions of the VLSs installed on it do not have to be perpendicular to the goggles' surface. An example of such an embodiment is illustrated in FIG. 1.